Heraclitus Quotes

All things flow, nothing abides.

Men forget where the way leads and what they meet with every day seems strange to them.We should not act and speak like men asleep.

One must know that war is common, justice is strife, and everything happens according to strife and necessity.

Give me one man
from among ten thousand
if he is the best

Wisdom is one thing, to know how to make true judgment, how all things are steered through all things.

Presumption must be quenched even more than a fire.

Man is most nearly himself when he achieves the seriousness of a child at play.

The path up and down is one and the same.

All entities move and nothing remains still

Asses prefer garbage to gold.

He who does not expect will not find out the unexpected, for it is trackless and unexplored

What opposes unites, and the finest attunement stems from things bearing in opposite directions, and all things come about by strife.

What allows us to be human is something daemonic.

The only constant in life is change

The track of writing is straight and crooked.

The world is nothing but a great desire to live and a great dissatisfaction with living.

From out of all the many particulars comes oneness, and out of oneness come all the many particulars.

Life is a child moving counters in a game.

War is the father and king of all,

What sense or thought do they have? They follow the popular singers, and they take the crowd as their teacher.

Everything is in flux.

We are most nearly ourselves when we achieve the seriousness of the child at play.

One must realize that war is common, and justice strife, and that all things come to be through strife and are (so) ordained.

Eyes are more accurate witnesses than ears.

Latent structure is master of obvious structure

One thunderbolt strikes
root through everything

May you have plenty of wealth, you men of Ephesus, in order that you may be punished for your evil ways

It is in changing that things find purpose.

Abundance of knowledge does not teach men to be wise.

Nothing endures but change. There is nothing permanent except change. All is flux, nothing stays still.

The phases of fire are craving and satiety.

God is day and night, winter and summer, war and peace, surfeit and hunger.

Much learning does not teach understanding.

All things come into being by conflict of opposites.

The people should fight for the law as for their city wall.

Ethos anthropoi daimon
a man's character is his fate.

The Cosmos was not made by gods but always was and is eternal fire.

People do not know how what is at variance agrees with itself. It is an attunement of opposite tensions, like that of the bow and the lyre.

You can never step in the same river twice.

The unexpected connection is more powerful than one that is obvious.

It is by disease that health is pleasant; by evil that good is pleasant; by hunger, satiety; by weariness, rest.

The only constant is change. Unless you get a small group of neighbors together to stop it.

The people must fight for their laws as for their walls.

There is nothing permanent in the world except change.

If you do not hope, you will not win that which is not hoped for, since it is unattainable and inaccessible.

Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.

Men who wish to know about the world must learn about it in its particular details.

If one does not expect the unexpected, one will not find it out, since it is not to be searched out, and difficut to compass.

The fairest harmony springs from discord.

To God all things are beautiful and good and just.

When men dream, each has his own world. When they are awake, they have a common world.

It is harder to fight pleasure than to fight emotion.

Life has the name of life, but in reality it is death.

To God all things are fair and good and right, but men hold some things wrong and some right.

Nothing is, everything is becoming.

There is but one world common for those who are awake, but when men are asleep, each turns away into a world of his own.

The sun is new each day.

I am what libraries and librarians have made me, with little assistance from a professor of Greek and poets.

It is better to hide ignorance, but it is hard to do this when we relax over wine.

Those who love wisdom must investigate many things

You may travel far and wide but never will you find the boundaries of the soul.

No same man could walk through the same river twice, as the man and the river have since changed.

For those who are awake, the Cosmos is One.

Realize that war is common and justice is strife, and that all things come into being and pass away through strife.

A hidden connection is stronger than an obvious one.

Man is on earth as in an egg.

Man, like a light in the night, is kindled and put out.

You won't discover the limits of the soul, however far you go.

You will not discover the limits of the soul
by traveling, even if you wander over every
conceivable path, so deep is its story.

Hide our ignorance as we will, an evening of wine soon reveals it.

Nature is wont to hide herself.

Things keep their secrets.

It ever was, and is, and shall be, ever-living fire, in measures being kindled and in measures going out.

The hidden harmony is better than the obvious.

The poet was a fool
who wanted no conflict
among us, gods
or people.
Harmony needs
low and high,
as progeny needs
man and woman.

It is not appropriate to act and speak like men asleep.

The seeing have the world in common.

Silence, healing.

Invisible harmony is better than visible.

The Lord whose oracle is at Delphi neither reveals nor conceals, but gives a sign

It is better to conceal ignorance than to expose it.

Knowledge is not intelligence.

To God everything is beautiful, good, and just; humans, however, think some things are unjust and others just.

Change is the only constant.

Could you tell night from day? No, I regard all such distinctions as logically impossible.

Thinking is common to all.

Opposition brings concord. Out of discord comes the fairest harmony.

War is the father and king of all: some he has made gods, and some men; some slaves and some free.

If you went in search of it, you would not find the boundaries of the soul, though you traveled every road-so deep is its measure [logos].

And some men are as ignorant of what they do when awake as they are forgetful of what they do when asleep.

All things come into being through opposition and all are in flux like a river

Any day stands
equal to the rest.

Nothing endures but change.

Learning many things does not teach understanding

Whoever cannot seek the unforeseen sees nothing for the known way is an impasse.

Change alone is unchanging.

there is nothing permanent except change--

What we have caught and what we have killed we have left behind, but what has escaped us we bring with us.

Couples are wholes and not wholes, what agrees disagrees, the concordant is discordant. From all things one and from one all things.

Other men are unaware of what they do when they are awake just as they are forgetful of what they do when they are asleep.